Staff Pick

The Eyre Affair took me a little time to really get into, but once Thursday Next  a literary detective from the future  enters Charlotte Bronte's novel and tries to save Jane and the story, the book is thoroughly fun, with all the digs at the classics, the fantasy element, and the crazy names of the characters. It works for someone who enjoys the classics (like me) or for those who enjoy fantasy (like my husband). For me the best fun was re-reading Jane Eyre and knowing between which chapters Thursday visited and when the Japanese tourist arrived.... Recommended by Carla, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude.

Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids.

Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe. Next up in the Thursday Next series: Lost in a Good Book. Read more about it at thursdaynext.com.

Review:

"Witty and clever, this literate romp heralds a fun new series set in a wonderfully original world." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"[Thursday Next is] part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew, and part Dirty Harry." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Review:

"The Eyre Affair is mostly a collection of jokes, conceits, and puzzles. It's smart, frisky, and sheer catnip for former English majors, a cross between Douglas Adams's A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music, with a big chunk of The Norton Anthology of English Literature tossed in." Laura Miller, Salon.com

Review:

"An unusually sure-footed first novel, this literary folly serves up a generally unique stew of fantasy, science fiction, procedural, and cozy literary mystery — but in the end is more dancing bear than ballet." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"If you have read any of the classics of English Literature, you will feel strangely at home in the action-packed alternative universe of Thursday Next....Hectic, humorous...and most satisfying." London Times

Review:

"So unusual you've got to read it to believe it; and please do." The Bookseller (London)

Review:

"For five years, I dragged freshman boys kicking and screaming through Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It was torture ? part of the academy's "Nip a Love of Literature in the Bud" program. But finally, those plaintive cries have been answered: Through the miracle of literary-genetic engineering, Jasper Fforde has crossbred Jane Eyre with James Bond and Harry Potter....This is about as much fun as you can have in the classics section without being thrown out of the library. To those students who swore they wouldn't reread Jane Eyre 'til Hades freezes over, I have good news: He's out cold. Start reading." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)

Synopsis:

The New York Times bestseller is the first in a series of outlandishly clever adventures featuring the resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative.

Synopsis:

The first installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series of Thursday Next novels introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England

Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with six more bestselling Thursday Next novels, including One of Our Thursdays is Missing and the upcoming The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating based on 21 comments:

Angela McGreevey, March 1, 2014 (view all comments by Angela McGreevey)
This is the first book in the Thursday Next series. Next is a former soldier, working for LiteraTech as a special ops literary detective. The book takes place in a some what futuristic 1985. Thursday finds herself in the middle of a dangerous case involving criminal mastermind Acheron Hades. Thursday will do anything to save her family and beloved books from Hades. This book is a fun detective fiction read , with a strong, relatable female character in the lead.

Amb Crist, August 30, 2012 (view all comments by Amb Crist)
The entire oeuvre of Jasper Fford is a pleasure not to be missed, but The Eyre Affair is an excellent place to start. Yes, that's Eyre as in the beloved Austin novel which is in peril. Enter Thursday Next, a heroine of wit and style, employed as a literary detective. Next is as hardboiled as Spade and as genteel as Marple, but her tongue remains firmly in her cheek and she leaves no malapropism unturned in her pursuit of literary justice. Behind the scenes, great literature is a hotbed of characters and plots requiring vigilance and intervention to maintain the author's intent, or something like it. Everyone who reads, whether it's the Sunday funnies or cherished classics, will find something in Fford's work that gets them where they live. Be warned that addiction to Fford is likely, but his website helps ease the pain of waiting for his next case file.

Sophie Pattison, August 5, 2012 (view all comments by Sophie Pattison)
Jasper Fforde is a genius. If you love to read, as I'm assuming you do if you're taking the time to read this comment, you will love this book. Particularly if you've read many of the English classics. Fforde is a great one for references, and I've got to tell you there's nothing that makes you feel smarter than understanding a good literary pun. Not only that, but Thursday Next is a delightful character who gets into all kinds of sticky situations with characters such as Millon de Floss, Jack Schitt, Hamlet, and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday Next. Even if you don't get all the references (which, I can assure you, I did not) it's still a great mystery novel and an all around well written book.

The Eyre Affair took me a little time to really get into, but once Thursday Next  a literary detective from the future  enters Charlotte Bronte's novel and tries to save Jane and the story, the book is thoroughly fun, with all the digs at the classics, the fantasy element, and the crazy names of the characters. It works for someone who enjoys the classics (like me) or for those who enjoy fantasy (like my husband). For me the best fun was re-reading Jane Eyre and knowing between which chapters Thursday visited and when the Japanese tourist arrived....

by Carla

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Witty and clever, this literate romp heralds a fun new series set in a wonderfully original world." Publishers Weekly

"Review"
by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times,
"[Thursday Next is] part Bridget Jones, part Nancy Drew, and part Dirty Harry."

"Review"
by Laura Miller, Salon.com,
"The Eyre Affair is mostly a collection of jokes, conceits, and puzzles. It's smart, frisky, and sheer catnip for former English majors, a cross between Douglas Adams's A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music, with a big chunk of The Norton Anthology of English Literature tossed in."

"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"An unusually sure-footed first novel, this literary folly serves up a generally unique stew of fantasy, science fiction, procedural, and cozy literary mystery — but in the end is more dancing bear than ballet."

"Review"
by London Times,
"If you have read any of the classics of English Literature, you will feel strangely at home in the action-packed alternative universe of Thursday Next....Hectic, humorous...and most satisfying."

"Review"
by The Bookseller (London),
"So unusual you've got to read it to believe it; and please do."

"Review"
by Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor,
"For five years, I dragged freshman boys kicking and screaming through Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It was torture ? part of the academy's "Nip a Love of Literature in the Bud" program. But finally, those plaintive cries have been answered: Through the miracle of literary-genetic engineering, Jasper Fforde has crossbred Jane Eyre with James Bond and Harry Potter....This is about as much fun as you can have in the classics section without being thrown out of the library. To those students who swore they wouldn't reread Jane Eyre 'til Hades freezes over, I have good news: He's out cold. Start reading." (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)

"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The New York Times bestseller is the first in a series of outlandishly clever adventures featuring the resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative.

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,

The first installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series of Thursday Next novels introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England

Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix. Thursday’s zany investigations continue with six more bestselling Thursday Next novels, including One of Our Thursdays is Missing and the upcoming The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com.

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